«No such luck. Tell me Leighton, how has it been going there?»
«If you mean by that, have I been having trouble with things that go bump in the night, the answer is no. Since you left, everything's been quiet. Quiet as a tomb, you might say. How about at your end?»
«Quiet here, too. We had a bit of trouble with the Ngaa immediately after takeoff, but since then nothing.»
«That's good news at any rate.»
«I'm not so sure.»
«Oh? The Ngaa has picked up its toys and gone home, and now you miss it?»
«No, no, but I'm getting a feeling about how the Ngaa operates. For example, I saw a picture of Dr. Colby's daughter Jane, the one who might have committed suicide.»
«And she looked exactly like the little girl you saw from the window of my study?»
«No, she looked completely different. Colby's daughter had black hair in bangs. The girl I saw was a blonde with a pony tail.»
«My word! Then who was it that you saw?»
«It was the Jane Colby I had expected to see. MacMurdo never actually described her, so I put together an image in my head of what a girl of that age, living in the states at that time, ought to look like. The Ngaa plucked that image out of my mind and presented it to me as a reality, knowing I'd accept it because it fulfilled my preconceived ideas. You see what I'm driving at?»
«Not really.»
«The Ngaa believes in giving people what they want. That's how it ropes people in, you see. That's how it roped in Dr. Colby, by allowing him to believe his daughter had returned to him.»
«Does Colby still believe that?»
«No, his researches have convinced him the so-called ghost he saw in Scotland was a pure illusion. He didn't like that conclusion, but he accepted it when the evidence became overwhelming. He's a father, Leighton, but he's also a scientist, and the scientist in him finally won the argument. It was a brutal disillusionment.»
«A pity, but I still don't see. «
«Think, Leighton, think! What do we want most now? To be rid of the Ngaa! So the Ngaa, like a good genie, is granting our wish, but only until we drop our guard. Then I promise you the Ngaa will be back, and with a few surprises we may find decidedly unpleasant.»
«Hmm. You may be right. But where will the Ngaa turn up, there where you are or here?»
«Here, I think. Richard is here.»
«That should make the Prime Minister happy. His flunkies have been crawling like lice all over the installation, making a bloody nuisance of themselves for the last few days. They're doing an inventory, they say, with an eye toward liquidating our assets. I hope you haven't forgotten the PM's ultimatum. He said he'd shut us down if Richard wasn't normal within two weeks. Eight days of that two weeks are gone already. We've only six days left. Do you think we'll make the deadline?»
J sighed. «I don't know. We're progressing.»
«Could Richard give a reasonable imitation of a sane man?»
«So long as nobody asked him anything about the last ten years.»
«Not good enough, I'm afraid. But bear in mind that we don't need a real cure, just one real enough to fool the PM and his examiners.»
J was about to reply with some angry objection, but instead got a grip on himself and said, «I'll keep that in mind.» Leighton was only being his usual pragmatic and brutally frank self.
«Anything more to tell me, old boy?» Leighton added.
«No.»
«Then I'll ring off. I'm frightfully busy keeping these idiots from breaking things.»
«One question, Leighton. Have you left the settings the same on KALI?»
«Yes. You think we might…»
«It's possible.» J thought, It's possible, even though the PM has forbidden it, even though the danger is beyond calculation. It's possible that we may have to send Richard Blade through into the Ngaa's dimension.
«Don't wait so long to call me again,» Leighton said.
«I won't. Goodbye, old chap.»
«Goodbye.»
J hung up, stepped back from the wall, and inspected his pocketwatch. As he did so, he could have sworn he saw something very odd out of the corner of his eye. He whirled to stare into one of the mirrors.
Had one of his many reflections moved more slowly than the others?
No, of course not. That was impossible.
The setting sun reddened the gray facade-it had once been white-of the sanitarium, a three-story pseudo-Grecian building of ample proportions. The front door opened and Zoe and Richard emerged, blinking and shading their eyes. They crossed the narrow porch, between the fluted Corinthian columns that framed the entrance, and descended the wide marble staircase. At the foot of the steps, on massive rectangular pedestals, two lifesize white stone lions crouched. As she neared one of them, Zoe could not help but notice the poor animal had lost its left ear and the tip of its tail, and was badly cracked across the haunches.
She sighed and thought, Too bad.
Richard took her hand. Had he heard her sigh?
They walked along a broad stretch of paving. Weeds grew in the joins between the paving stones, and in the cracks in the stones themselves where the smooth pale surface was broken. She heard soft footsteps behind her but did not look around. She knew two guards were following her, armed with the ever-present air-propelled tranquilizer dart guns.
By the tall flagpole, as thick as a man's arm, they halted.
Richard, squinting upward, said, «I don't see the good old Union Jack.» There was no flag on the pole at all.
Zoe laughed. «I doubt if anyone has thought of flying it.»
Blade was half-serious, half-joking. «This place is a British possession, isn't it? Like an embassy?» He let go of her hand.
«Not really, Dick. And I doubt if Dr. Colby wants to attract attention.»
«You're quite right, of course.» He bent, grasped the pole and gave it an experimental tug. It remained firm in its base, though it gave a little, very little.
«What on earth are you doing?» she demanded.
«Nothing.» He straightened, a thoughtful enigmatic expression on his tanned angular features. There were beads of sweat on his forehead, though the late afternoon air was quite cool. She wondered, Had he been trying to pull the flagpole up by the roots? Whatever for? She eyed his powerful torso. He wore a white short-sleeved T-shirt with his white slacks and tennis shoes. If he wanted to do something that insane, he could probably manage it. He noticed her looking at him and smiled. «Come along, Zoe. Let's explore the grounds of our prison.»
He began walking, drawing her along by the hand.
«This is no prison,» she protested.
«Then let's leave.»
«You know we can't do that, Dick.»
«I rest my case, love. It is a prison.»
«It's a hospital. You're here to get well.»
«I'm not sick.» He shot her a glance from his dark, glittering eyes. «And you're not a nurse.»
This was a reference to the white nurse's uniform she was wearing. They had both come from England without clothing, and had been outfitted from the sanitarium's supply of staff uniforms.
He had halted again and was looking through a grove of fragrant eucalyptus and pine trees at where the sun silhouetted the Golden Gate Bridge. He said, «I can't believe the KGB would build a second Golden Gate Bridge just for me.»
«What do you mean by that?»
«J says you're an agent now, so I can tell you everything, can't I?» As he spoke he studied her face.
«Of course.»
«The Ruskies have a department called TWIN. They school some of their men there to look, act and think like every one of our important agents, so that, at the right moments, they can send in one of their doubles to replace one of us. They have training towns in Russia, you see. Exact duplicates of places in England and the USA.»
«And you thought this was a duplicate Berkeley, somewhere in the Soviet Union?» She was awed. This kind of thinking, this professional, matter-of-fact, businesslike paranoia was new to her.